


Markers, Crayons, and Long Distance Relationships

by pajamabees



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Adam is the best teacher....., M/M, hockey and teacher au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-23 16:08:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18553177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pajamabees/pseuds/pajamabees
Summary: Shiro has to leave for hockey's pre-season in a few weeks, but he uses this time to help Adam prepare for the school year. He loves listening to him talk....





	Markers, Crayons, and Long Distance Relationships

The classroom was simple: a rectangular shape, with three windows along the length of one wall and cubbies with blue-painted doors on the other. The better half of the room had four groups of desks—six desks in each group. In front of the chalkboard was another longer desk with an overhead projector in the middle.

When Shiro asked why there wasn’t an updated ELMO projector, Adam simply shrugged.

“The school only has a few of those right now, and I volunteered to keep the old one.” He then smiled and gave Shiro a wink. “The kids seem to favor it, anyway. They like to write in markers and help me clean the transparency sheets.”

And in the very back of the room was another chalkboard with a large rug in front of it. It was patterned in squares of different colors, which Adam used to assign seating for recreational activities like reading sessions.

The rest of the room was filled with decorations, fun posters, and laminated grammar sheets. Several crates lined one wall—they were labeled assignments, each crate a respective section. Above that was a reusable Star of the Week poster, and Adam explained that the chosen student got to take the poster home and fill it out. There were questions regarding nicknames, family pets, favorite color, favorite animal, and hobbies.

It was all very cute. And with the sun shinning in from the windows, very bright and cozy as well.

“So, when does the school year start?” Shiro asked, sitting on the patterned rug and organizing the board games. The ones with a few pieces missing were put into a separate pile.

Across the room, Adam was wiping down the desks. “Next week.”

“Hmm. Only a week until the teacher outfits come out.”

“Teacher outfits?” Adam laughed. “I wear the same thing I would any other day.”

“I know, but I’m just imagining you teaching…looking all teachery.”

Another laugh—like bamboo wind chimes—and Shiro looked up to see Adam shaking his head and smiling. His heart did a little loop-de-loop at the slight of a blush on the man’s cheeks.

“’Teachery’,” Adam murmured, and he finished wiping off the last of the student desks before walking over to his own in the corner of the room.

Then it was quiet. A comfortable, soothing quiet. The windows were open to air out the room—and because the school had no AC—and the summer birds were chirping outside. Shiro felt like a little kid himself, sitting at the back and messing with the games. But after a while he finished organizing them and just sat back, watching his fiancé fiddle around with items on his desk. With slim, nimble fingers, he rearranged his cute stationaries: a shark stapler, a mermaid tape dispenser, and two pen holders—one a miniature recycling bin and the other a miniature trash bin. And inside those pen holders…absolute mayhem of pens and pencils of all kinds. Shiro saw gel pens in the shape of feathers, others with animal caps. There were mechanical pencils and regular pencils, but all a different color. It screamed elementary school teacher. It screamed ADAM.

And of course, because it wouldn’t be Adam’s desk without it, the plants. Everywhere. Shiro noticed him carrying them in from the car, and now he was situating them behind the dusted computer and by the window.

Shiro stared at them for a few seconded and frowned. “Are those…fake?”

That wasn’t like Adam. Adam preferred real ones because he actually liked the smell of them. Always said they radiated more energy than the plastic ones. So why were these fake?

Adam sighed, a little sad. “Yeah. I noticed the kids like to help out a lot, and they think they’re doing a good deed by watering the plants for me…. They don’t understand that plants can drown.”

Shiro laughed—kids were ridiculous—and Adam shot him a half-hearted glare, but eventually smiled anyway. “I was actually thinking,” he continued, playing with a leaf from a fake Aloe plant. “Maybe I should add a gardening activity at the end of the year, where the students can grow their own flowers. I could teach them the basics, at least. And it would fit right in with the Plant Biology unit.”

“You’re going to raise mini Adams.”

Snorting, Adam walked around his desk and reached for his bag—teacher bag, as Shiro liked to call it—and pulled out a pile of large laminated posters. “Yeah, yeah—I think they’ll like it. By the way, are you done with those?” He gestured towards the board games.

Shiro looked down at the two piles; one was organized into a pyramid, with the largest box at the bottom, and the other was just thrown into a lazy pile of about four games, all of which had missing or broken pieces. He nodded.

“Good,” Adam said, and he weaved around the desks until he was standing a few feet from Shiro. “I need your help with these.” Waving the pile of papers around in his hand, he motioned for Shiro to get up.

****

“What letter are you on now?”

“X”

Shiro groaned and shifted the weight on his shoulders, making sure to hold onto Adam’s legs as he did so. From above, Adam yelped and grabbed onto his head.

“Stop moving!”

“Sorry. I think my shoulders are going numb.”

“Just two more letters and you can put me down—you’re doing great, sweetie.”

“…I hate it when you use your teacher voice on me.”

He felt Adam laugh more than he heard it, and he held on tighter, shifting to the right a few more times on Adam’s command. He could feel his muscles begin to strain, but he supposed it wasn’t much different than any of the other exercises his workout coach made him do.

“Okay hockey boy,” Adam finally said. “You can put me down.”

With another painful groan, Shiro slowly knelt down on one knee until Adam was able to fully plant his feet on the ground. And then the weight on his shoulders was gone. He sighed and plopped down on his back, admiring the new line of alphabetical letters above the chalkboard.

“Tell me again why you couldn’t just use a ladder?”

Adam just shrugged and laid down next to him on the rug. “Maintenance isn’t working today, and they’re the only ones with a key to the storage closet.”

“Ah.”

And then it was silent, just the two of them relaxing for a bit. The birds were still chirping up a storm outside, with the occasionally soothing sound of wind brushing against the trees. Shiro imagined hot days like this, in a classroom with 25 or so kids, all quiet and taking a quiz. Or maybe Adam would turn on an educational film for them because it was just too hot to do anything else. He would make them fill out a little worksheet of course, because Adam wanted them to follow along and actually learn something. A few students would secretly be a little cranky at that because they wanted to use this time to chill out and maybe close their eyes, while others would be perfectly fine with the easy assignment. At one point a student misses an answer and whispers to their friend if they caught it. Shiro wondered if Adam would tell them to hush or just let it be.

Suddenly, Adam reached for his hand and intertwined their fingers. Shiro was pulled from his thoughts as Adam brought their combined hands up to his lips, where he kissed the back of his hand.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked, and Shiro watched him kiss his hand again.

“Just you being all teachery,” Shiro said with a smile, and Adam returned it with a grin of his own, except it was hidden behind their hands. Shiro only knew he was smiling because of the barely noticeable crow feet at the corner of his eyes.

And then Shiro thought of the rest of the school year, where Adam had to come home after teaching a classroom full of loud and unique kids to an empty house. Keith away at college, Shiro practically gone for the entire year, traveling all over the place for hockey’s pre-season, and then regular season, and then maybe the playoffs if his team could make it. And in a way Shiro kind of hoped they didn’t make it, because that meant he could go home early. Go home to Adam and listen to him talk about his day.

Shiro swallowed down a lump in his throat, and he squeezed Adam’s hand. “What do you have planned for the school year?” he asked, because he knew he wouldn’t be able to hear about it until much, much later.

They locked eyes then, and Adam gave him an understanding look before he turned to look up at the ceiling.

And he talked and talked, about anything and everything. He explained that he was excited to meet new kids, like he was every year, and how he was always happy to see the students he had taught a year prior in the halls. There were seasonal parties planned, where him a few other teachers wanted to get together at the house and bake cupcakes. He was particularly ecstatic for the Halloween party. And apparently this year the history lessons were going to be shorter, and Adam visibly showed his distaste. But a new science project involving paper airplanes and aerodynamics made up for it.

“Did you ever make slime in school? I remember all we had was glue, baking powder, and contact lens solution, and we would mix it in a plastic bag. Now there’s all this stuff you can use to make different kinds of slime, like lotion and all that jazz. I think the kids will love it. It will be messy, but they’ll love it. Oh! And I have a lesson planned where they’ll get to make their own ice cream!”

There were new books, too, that were added to the curriculum

“The ones last year were bland. But these look promising.” And then Adam laughed. “There’s always one student who reads faster than everyone else, and they always try to spoil the ending.”

And then he got up to show Shiro the new Book Reading sheets he had printed out, where students filled out any books they read outside of school and turned it in at the end of each quarter with a parent signature. The max was ten books, but there was no penalty if a student couldn’t reach it.

“The minimum is one book. I know that sounds lenient, but some students just don’t like reading, ya know? Or maybe they’re busy, or already struggling to read the books for class. I just want them to at least read _something_ outside of school, even if it’s one book.”

He then explained that last year a student came to him when the class was visiting the school library and said she didn’t know what other books to read. He asked her some questions, and then recommended The Last Apprentice. Two weeks later she told him she read the entire series already, and the smile on Adam’s face as he told the story was impossible to look away from.

“And the books are pretty long! I was so proud of her.”

Shiro learned that the school will be having two book fairs this year instead of one, because the kids liked them so much. Adam said he had been saving up money for any students who won’t be able to afford anything.

Shiro thought for a moment, and then asked, “Is that why there’s suddenly a giant jar of cash in the basement?”  

Adam looked away sheepishly as together they put the usable board games back on the shelves. “Yeah….”

Shiro just grinned, but he made a mental note to sneak some cash into the jar every now and then.

The rest of the day slipped by just like that, with Shiro following a talkative Adam around the classroom and helping out as much as he could. Shiro asked, and Adam answered with a response so lengthy Shiro wondered if he ever breathed. It wasn’t until Adam figured out nearly all of his markers for the overhead didn’t work that Shiro came up behind him for a tight hug.

“Why don’t we take a break for today and get something to eat,” he said, and he kissed Adam’s shoulder. “Maybe pick up some new markers on our way home.”

Adam sighed and leaned back against him. “Yeah, that sounds good.” He then craned his neck to look at him. “Do you want to help me again tomorrow? I still need to do a few more things….”

“Of course.”

Adam smiled with a happy hum and puckered his lips, and Shiro laughed before diving in for a quick and sweet kiss.

“By the way,” Adam continued after they pulled apart, “Field Day is going to be pretty late this year. Maybe, if your team doesn’t make the playoffs—and I’m not saying I want you guys to lose! But maybe, if you wanted to, you could come help out? I’m sure the kids would love you….”

Tightening his hold around his fiancé’s waist, Shiro kissed him again and held it for a little bit longer. “I would love to. Let’s hope my team gets its ass kicked.”

They both laughed, and with one final kiss, they packed everything up and headed out, hand in hand.

Shiro’s chest constricted knowing that he would have to leave for practice in a few weeks, but he looked forward to the school year, where he secretly got to watch Adam sit at the dining room table and grade papers, plan projects, and just in general do teacher things as he sipped his tea.

And when Shiro finally had to go on the road again, he’d make sure to call Adam every night like always, if only to hear his sweet voice talk about his day and the students he cared so deeply for.


End file.
